Meals between wheels

A facebook cover photo that proves you're deep and interesting should include massive stairs, like those in front of a palace or a museum. I've seen a lot of interesting people with them. For balance, the following cover photo usually showcases them slightly drunk, at the beach or in equally embarrassing situations, such as in front of a courthouse. On the plus side, courthouses also have massive stairs. But it has nothing to do with today's story.

This weekend was set for cooking. Cooking requires a complex combination of factors in precise percentages, such as advanced planning, hunger, lack of other options during the day the cooking is supposed to happen and remembering to buy ingredients. It's way easier to cook if you do have the ingredients. Also, you're more motivated as you know they'll go bad and it's not good to waste food. One of the main bullets on the shopping list says 'What other crap was I supposed to buy?' To this day, the mystery remains unsolved and the bullet is still there. Un-ticked.

Anyway, off to cooking. Since it was decided to be vegetarian, it was supposed to be various vegetables stuffed with a tasty vegetarian filling, baked in the oven for a certain amount of time until they look even more tasty than before they went in. Since this is not a cooking blog, I will not focus on such details as quantities, timing at each step or pictures at various stages of the process. There are no pictures in this blog, based on a decision I'm sticking with for the sake of a whim continuity. Anyway, the focus here is time and superb coordination during cooking, rather than the recipe. Today's cooking had to adapt around the complicate schedule of the 3 Moto Grand Prix races at Assen (it's a Dutch circuit, not a German porn). Rain was announced, which meant races could be delayed; this made things even more challenging.

First, the filling, based on red lentils and caramelized onions. Someone mentioned the other day lentils were tasty, not to mention nutritious qualities (which are not that relevant, but they don't hurt, either). I had never cooked lentils before, so I looked on the internet for how to cook lentils. For those who don't know, lentils are supposed to be soaked for 12 hours. Initially, I was thinking to cook them 2 days ago, but for various reasons everything was delayed till today (2 days later, in case you did not pay attention), so the lentils have been soaked thoroughly for about 60 hours (I wouldn't wash the same bowl twice). Yesterday evening I noticed the 12-hours interval is for green lentils, as opposed to red, for which 30 minutes are enough. Anyway, the wheels were already in motion, so there we go. Red lentils are interesting because of their orange colour. After soaking they turn a bit pinkish, and after boiling (after 60 hours of soaking they were still a bit chewy, so off to the stove they went) they get a very nice yellowish colour. The curry powder may have contributed a bit to the yellowish shade, though. In their defense, the label on the bag of lentils had a red background, so there is a bit of truth to their name. Since this was supposed to be experimentation, the condiments were entirely up to me (hint: curry powder and sweet paprika are a rather good choice).

As the lentils boiled -the upside of a thorough soak is a surprisingly short time required for the boiling until they're done- it was time to do something else. Not enough time for anything complicated, so I chopped the onions and ate some fruit. Eating apricots and grapes can be a very emotional thing. Or maybe chopping onions is, not sure. As the boiling completed, I mixed in the rest of the condiments, set everything aside, and off to see the first race. Very nice and exciting race, as usual. A Spanish guy won, and as I was already fed up with the Spanish anthem I skipped the champagne fight and went back to the kitchen.

Time for the caramelized onions. It's easier than it sounds, as long as a bit of attention is paid. And remembering to mix and toss them every once in a while for uniform colour, doneness and yum factor. And, as opposed to onion soup, this does not take several weeks during which at least three people take eight-hours shifts to supervise the process. It's actually quite fast, even on a low flame (you don't want to be too fast, right?). Between stirring the onions there was enough time to prepare the vegetables for the (already delicious, judging by the smell) filling. It was supposed to be tomatoes, eggplants and bell peppers. Since the eggplants were highjacked in a mutabal yesterday, I settled for tomatoes and bell peppers only. Quick and straightforward: try to make as much room as possible without poking holes (as a side-note, I think avocado skins could make a good shell for holding stuff; I didn't have any available to test, so maybe another time). The second race was delayed 20 minutes, due to weather conditions. As more time was available, the inner tomato bits removed a bit earlier went straight into the pan, as a bonus for the onions. Another bonus was some almond meal, which tied everything together quite nicely (both ideas proved to be quite smart). Chopped cilantro and parsley followed, with a few drops of hot sauce along with other condiments. Once everything was nicely mixed I put the pan aside to cool (still covered, for extra softness) and went back to the telly just in time for the warm-up lap. Not as dramatic as the first race, but at least there was a nicer anthem at the end.

The break between the second and third race was less challenging, as I remembered Brazil is playing Chile in a couple of hours and there is plenty of time. I had some more fruit instead and fell asleep in the second half of the third race (it wasn't that exciting after). All in all, great timing, (almost) great races and great food. It's also very healthy, but hey, nobody's perfect.

Everybody be cool!

I came across a post from a HR lady about what makes HR so cool. Yes, there are such people with such questions. This isn't made up, this is copy/paste/then-remove-names-because-of-coma-you-know-coma-pity.


One day I have asked myself... What's So Cool About HR? and felt like I needed to reconnect with all my HR mates to see all kind of different perspectives.
So here you have:
HR #1: We are cool and we are making HR cool! :)
HR #2: Applying NLP just for fun. And ruining your first dates forever.
HR #3: HR people are cool! HR professionals understand people, pick the right ones, encourage them and get the best out of them, create an excellent work environment, manage benefits and help people become better performers and meet the business goals. HR is the driver of a company's competitive advantage!
HR #4: :) I love my job !!!
HR #5: The chance to be well known by almost all employees of the company! Free self-branding! :))
HR #6: Power! small gods who play with the lives of others! :)) True or not?
HR #7: HR is about finding the missing link in the in the whole puzzle.
HR #8: The role that HR has is cool - challenges, projects, people (some of them).

And these are only a few of my colleagues:D

Everything nice and shiny, right? Typos aside, of course, but you know HR are lenient on those when they spot them in CVs.

Well, this is what I gathered from the blurbs:

• HR #1. Overconfidence outshines logic and common sense. HR people are cool (they just are, no justification required), hence HR is cool. A is "x", so B is also "x" because A does B. Based on this, charming murderers commit lovely crimes.
• HR #2. Psychopaths agree. Some sex offenders agree, too.
• HR #3. Almost convincing. To the weak minds, bullshit bingo always is.
• HR #4. Brevity is the soul of the wit. True, but not applicable here. Here it's just concise drivel. "I love ice-cream" would be equally relevant. And ice-cream is fun enough you don't even need to begin with a smiley face (did you check? It is there, yes).
• HR #5. Illusion of grandeur. The catering guy who delivers lunch warm and on time is well known by all the employees. The receptionist is well know by all the employees, as well. And so is the flasher at the company meeting (this also ticks the self-branding box, rather efficiently).
• HR #6. Megalomania. Walking hand-in-hand with insecurity.
• HR #7. Cluelessness about their own work. If you're looking for something in a puzzle, it should be a piece, rather than a link. And if it is already in the puzzle, it's not missing; it's hidden. If it were missing, you wouldn't look for it in the puzzle, you'd look for it in the box. Or under the table. And if you have a cat, then good luck ever finding it.
• HR #8. Cluelessness about everybody else's work. There are other departments whose work involve challenges, projects and people. Quite a few, actually. And most of the times, these don't even guarantee a cool role. On the contrary: easy tasks, free time and no other people messing about are better candidates for making your job cool.

Unfortunately, these are only a few of the HR colleagues. There are more. Also unfortunately, the cool and competent ones did not answer. Mainly because they don't need to answer this sort of question to silence low self-esteem and insecurity.

I do apologize for the back-and-forth scrolling between bullets and italics.

As opposed to

No foreplay, this is also about a movie. A more recent one, depending on when you're reading, about Emily Blunt traveling in time.

Even when it's not for real (it's never for real, actually, as confirmed by Professor Hawking), time traveling is no easy task, you cannot just go in at once. It takes patience and perseverance.You start first by skewing time a bit (The Adjustment Bureau), then do it a couple of times (Looper), and only then you're ready to go back and forth on a daily basis. Judging by the trend, she must be quite disappointed with the present.

Unfortunately the future is not much better, as it involves war, total destruction and robots from France (they are ugly and have tentacles so you would be forgiven to mistake them for actual Frenchmen, but it is explained in the movie). Worse, you discover that frequent time travel involves an annoying midget following you everywhere, no matter how many times you try to kill him. I will not spoil the story too much by telling he's Tom Cruise, the writers have done a much better job at spoiling the story already.

Like most of the movies this summer, it begins with Messi doing tricks with a can of Pepsi. Then some more ads, some trailers, where the hell did I put those 3d glasses?, and finally Mr. Cruise.

Despite his initial reluctance to fight, Mr. Cruise is traveling back and forth in time, fighting alien robots. Whenever he dies, he can start over and change things a bit to live a bit longer. Like in a game where you can't save and you start over every time you die (but unlike a game where you can't save, you cannot even press Pause when you need to go to the loo). In his quest he's aided by Mrs. Blunt, who's quite feminist at first but she gets around rather quickly. I guess his badass suit -that everyone is wearing- and convincing story help a bit and break the ice. Probably the small wooden box he stands on also helps a bit, although we don't see it in the movie. I'm not telling he's small (you can see that for yourself), but if he had played in the Hobbit a lot of money could have been saved on the CGI. A few deaths later, he's getting quite good and actually learns to configure the suit and use it to kill the baddies. Surprisingly for an American weapon, it has instructions in multiple languages (not Arabian, though, for whatever reason). He also gets extra help from Mrs. Blunt, who helps him in her spare time. In her busy time, she's doing push-ups or Yoga. Contributing to the overall success is a brilliant professor who looks like a not-so-brilliant janitor. This professor built a device that can somehow help with time travel issues. You know it works, as your eyes get colored in black when everything goes alright.

One of the more intense moments of the movie is when Mr. Cruise gathers his mates around him and says "I know what I'm about to say will sound crazy". I put popcorn aside, moved to the edge of the seat and held my breath waiting for him to say "Scientology is drivel". But he did not, he went on about time travel (which, in comparison, is not that crazy). Such a lost opportunity, that could have been the best (and unexpected) movie ending in a long time. So that was not the most intense moments of the movie, after all.
Another intense moment is when she wants to shoot him as usual but he tells her not to, as he's not coming back this time because he lost the ability to rejuvenate (you wouldn't expect Mr. Cruise to use such elevated words, and you're right; he doesn't). Unfortunately, this moment is spoiled again, this time by Mrs. Blunt, as she doesn't shoot him.
There's another scene packed with suspense towards the end of the movie, when they drive a ship (no, I actually got it right) between Eiffel Tower and Le Louvre in a final attempt to destroy the ultimate alien. Paris looks as lovely as ever, but you notice this only briefly, as tension escalates during the chase (I still didn't get to go to the loo). Despite the frantic pace, it takes a while, probably as long as it takes to walk that distance in real life. And it should take even less, as there's no people getting in the way and offering to sell them Eiffel Tower key-chains or bottled water for 3 euros. But, as you may have guessed already, it's just another disappointing moment, as Mr. Cruise does not get killed. On the plus side, the movie ends shortly after this.

One thing that confuses me is why in military planes people stay sideways. Not only it's less efficient, as you can only carry a few people in one plane and pollute more, but you'd think facing forward would be more intuitive, especially if jumping from the plane is expected at some point and you're probably curios about what's ahead. The best explanation I could come up with is that they're flying toward East, and they want to avoid sun going in their eyes (even those wearing sunglasses). Either that, or they want to make sure they don't bother anyone when they need to use the bathroom. Of course, it could only be to encourage communication.